Month: May 2021

Estonian energy company, Alexela and cleantech start-up, PowerUP Energy Technologies, unveiled the first-ever Smart Hydrogen cabinet at Alexela’s refilling station at the Kakumäe harbor in Estonia’s capital city, Tallinn.

The first of its kind smart hydrogen cabinet is targeted towards small application users of hydrogen including sailing boats, yachts, and campervans. To show mobility of the smart cabinet, it will soon be shifted to a more commercial harbour in Tallinn located in Pirita.

The smart cabinet is fully automated and filled with lightweight hydrogen cylinders, provided by PowerUP Energy Technologies. With almost no human contact, the smart cabinets will be operated by a mobile payments system application called Paytailor, which makes mobile payments easy for its customers. In addition to this, the application provides its customers a seamless experience of operating the smart cabinet. The customers can open the smart cabinet, choose the number of hydrogen tanks they want to rent, and make the payment, all via the application.

Powered by solar panels, the cabinet is a smart way for sailors, campervan owners, or any other small application users of hydrogen to easily rent out hydrogen cylinders using an app.

Cleantech start-up, PowerUP Energy Technologies, has provided type 3 and type 4 hydrogen cylinders for this venture. Speaking at the launch, Dr. Ivar Kruusenberg, Founder and CEO at PowerUP Energy Technologies said

“Hydrogen has a promising role to play in achieving decarbonisation targets globally.”

“With hydrogen presence in Estonia being fairly limited due to lack of large-scale hydrogen production in the country as well as very few fuel cells implemented in real applications, this smart hydrogen cabinet will be the first step in Estonia’s energy transition to the most sought-after clean energy fuel – Hydrogen. Through this collaboration, we are reassuring our commitment to provide clean and safe energy solutions for everyone”

The launch of the pilot hydrogen smart cabinet in Estonia is a simple and cost-effective solution to hydrogen distribution and based on the response from the customers in Estonia, it is planned to be duplicated in other European countries as well.

Talking about the smart cabinet launch Marti Hääl, Executive Vice President of the Estonian energy company Alexela, says that they have the readiness to supply hydrogen with the rising demand, Marti added:

“The hydrogen solution presented with PowerUP is an example of how the value chain of hydrogen is actually doable.”

“The task today regarding hydrogen is to get enough consumers to spur the production in order to achieve competitive value for the consumers. But definitely, we at Alexela are ready for hydrogen entering the transport sector wider.”

About PowerUP Energy Technologies
PowerUP Energy Technologies is an Estonia-based cleantech start-up that produces best-in-class hydrogen fuel cell-based electric generators and proton exchange membrane fuel cells. PowerUP’s technology is based on their co-founders’ 15 years of scientific research in the field of fuel cells and energy technologies. Their generators have diverse use cases in industries such as marine, telecommunication, military, construction, hospitals, off-grid homes, and rescue forces to name a few. UP® product range is sustainable since it emits zero-emission, compact and lightweight, operates silently and requires minimal maintenance. Their first commercial products include 200W and W400 portable generators and they are soon launching 1kW and 6kW generators. PowerUP Energy Technologies serves as a sustainable alternative to power generation in today’s world and helps its users in various industries to reach the global net-zero targets.

About Alexela
Alexela is an Estonian company that mainly deals in the field of energy. The company has a unique product portfolio in Estonia, which includes, electricity, natural and biogas, balloon gas, container gas and through 104 service stations throughout Estonia, also all alternatives for car refuelling. Alexela develops H2 terminal in Paldiski, Estonia and LNG terminal in Hamina, Finland and also innovative pumped hydro energy storage in Paldiski, to facilitate large-scale storage of renewable electricity produced in Estonia.

For further information, please contact:

Taarini Atal
Head of Public Relations
PowerUP Energy Technologies
taarini@powerup-tech.com
+372 58909107

Marit Liik
Communications Manager
Alexela
marit.liik@alexela.ee
+372 5664 9619

Orginal article: https://hydrogen-central.com/smart-hydrogen-cabinet-estonia-alexela-powerup-energy-technologies/

The eighth application round of the Estonian space business incubator finished in April. Four strong candidates presented their space-related business ideas to a jury of consortium partners from the European Space Agency’s Business Incubator in Estonian (ESA BIC Estonia). Due to the high level of the teams, the jury chose three space technology start-ups to join the incubation program. Together with the alumni and the companies that signed a contract last week, 19 of the 20 places are filled.

To date, all companies selected to join ESA BIC Estonia have signed agreements and started planning the next steps together with the business incubator team and mentors.

“Since its launch in 2017, the ESA Business Incubator in Estonia has proven that young companies founded by our entrepreneurs and researchers pass the thorough screening of the ESA BIC evaluation panel. They offer not only new ideas but also plans on how to monetize them,” said Madis Võõras, Head of the Estonian Space Bureau.

This time, two spin-off companies of the University of Tartu, LightCode Photonics OÜ and UP Catalyst OÜ, and 10Lines OÜ, which recently won the European Satellite Navigation Agency (GSA) business competition from the prototype to the product category, were selected. Sven Lilla, project manager of ESA BIC Estonia, pointed out that companies are becoming more and more aware of the nature and possibilities of space technologies. He sees that the research achievements of Estonian universities have a great potential to lay the foundations for new knowledge-intensive space companies. Lilla added that this time the companies had an exceptionally high technical and scientific background. They have great potential to support future space missions in the direction of creating a Moonbase. The University of Tartu has been a breeding ground for Estonian space companies and thanks to the world-class student satellite program ESTCube and Tartu Observatory. Currently, five spin-off companies of the University of Tartu are involved in the ESA BIC Estonia incubation program.

LightCode Photonics Ltd is developing a 3D camera, which enables autonomous machines to “see” better and thus ensure greater safety on self-propelled machines, both on land and in the air. UP Catalyst OÜ produces carbon nanomaterials and catalysts for various applications in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way through the electrolysis of carbon dioxide, the by-product of which is oxygen. This will provide an opportunity to produce oxygen on space missions in the future. 10 Lines OÜ is developing a robot that can mark lines on parking lots without any help, using precision navigation and satellite images.

Today, 19 companies have joined the ESA Estonian Business Incubator, nine of which are in the Tartu Incubator and ten in Tallinn. The cities have invested a total of € 620,000 in companies, which has helped create 88 high value-added jobs in the region. Companies have paid nearly € 980,000 in labour taxes and have a turnover of over € 3.7 million.

In the autumn application round with a deadline of October 28, there is one last place to fill in the ESA Estonia Tartu Business Incubator.

Estonian Business Incubator of the European Space Agency – creates new business opportunities.

The Estonian business incubator of the European Space Agency is the first of its kind in the Baltics. ESA Estonia Business Incubator is part of the world’s largest network of incubators, which includes 22 space business incubators in 60 locations across Europe. To date, the network has supported the creation and development of more than 1,100 space technology start-ups. The goal of the ESA Estonian Business Incubator operating in Tartu and Tallinn is to help 20 space start-ups within five years. The business incubator offers them 50,000 euros in product development support, industry-specific mentorship and access to the ESA network. The goal of the ESA Estonian Business Incubator is to create new jobs and develop the local economy.

The leading partner of ESA BIC Estonia is Tartu Science Park. In cooperation with Tehnopol, they offer space business incubation services in Tallinn and Tartu.

The consortium of the space business incubator consists of seven partners: Tartu Science Park, Tehnopol Science and Business City, City of Tartu, the City of Tallinn, the University of Tartu together with Tartu Observatory, Tallinn University of Technology and Kredex.

Read more about ESA BIC Estonia here: www.esabic.ee